Monday, August 29, 2016

“Earth and sky, woods and fields, lakes
and rivers, the mountains and the sea

are excellent school masters, and teach us
more than we can learn from books.”

Sir
John Lubbock (1834-1913)

Naturalist,
University of London

“New Hampshire’s mountains curl up in a
coil.”

Robert
Frost (1874-1963)

“New
Hampshire” 1923

Straight ahead is Eisenhower. My eleven-year-old grandson tells me the rounded,
domed peak mimics the late President’s bald head. I am impressed with George’s
cranial knowledge of past Presidents. We are sitting on the veranda of the Mt.
Washington Hotel looking south and east toward the Presidential Range.

The hotel, now renovated and owned by the Omni Group, was the scene, in
the summer of 1944, of the Bretton Woods Conference that set new rules for the
post-War international monetary system that created the International Monetary
Fund (IMF) and assured stable currencies, with the U.S. Dollar exchangeable
into gold at $35.00 per ounce and with other currencies pegged to it. The
system worked, at least for twenty-seven years, until in 1971 the Nixon
Administration, coping with rising inflation and a run on the metal, ended gold
convertibility.

In July of 1944 the Second World War had nine months to run. By the
time of the Conference the Allies had landed at Normandy. The Soviet Army was
moving west toward the Elbe. American, British and Canadian troops were pushing
east toward the Rhine. Paris was yet to be liberated. Tens of thousands more
would die, but ultimate victory seemed clear. Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill,
in the summer of 1944, were committed to avoiding what a lack of planning had
unleashed on Europe in the years following the Armistice ending the First World
War twenty-six years earlier. Conference delegates were watched over by the inspiring
and magisterial peaks of Washington, Adams and Jefferson.

From our view on the veranda we look out at a number of summits –
Pierce, Eisenhower, Franklin, Monroe, Washington, Reagan[1], Jefferson, Adams and
Madison. Franklin was named for Benjamin Franklin, who while never President,
nevertheless served a critical role in the founding of our government. There is
a Mt. Jackson, but that is named for Charles Thomas Jackson, a New Hampshire
geologist, not Andrew Jackson. There is also a Mt. Lincoln, but that is in
Franconia Notch, not the “Presidential Range.”

The White Mountain National Forest (WMNF) was established in 1918.
While we typically associate Theodore Roosevelt with conservation efforts, it
was President Benjamin Harrison who, in 1891, signed the bill creating the
National Forest System. At 750,852 acres, the WMNF seems large, but relative to
the 190 million acres of National Forest owned by the federal government it is
small. Geologists estimate that the White Mountains, which are part of the Appalachian
Range, were formed about 100 million years ago. Even to a white-haired
grandfather of ten that seems a long time ago. However, the Barberton
Greenstone Belt in South Africa and the Hamersley Range in Australia date back
three to five billion years.

The WMNF is truly a place to be enjoyed by any and all who venture
north. A hundred miles of the Appalachian Trail, which extends from Springer
Mountain in Georgia to Mt. Katahdin in Maine, winds its way through and over
peaks in New Hampshire’s White Mountains. Eleven hundred miles of other trails
make hiking in this preserve special. (My son, his wife and their four
children, who are staying with us, spent one day climbing the Ammonoosuc Ravine
Trail, which begins near the base of Cog Railway, to the top of Washington.) It
is the possibility of membership in New Hampshire’s uniquely restrictive 4,000
footers club – there are officially 48 peaks above 4,000 feet in New Hampshire –
is one reason people return to the area year after year.

One of the more fascinating aspects of the White Mountains is the
vegetation, and the changes one can see as one climbs through deciduous forests
of Maple and Beech, to higher elevations, with Birch, Hemlock, Red Spruce and
Balsam Fir, into what is known as the Upper Boreal Zone (4000 to 4400 feet),
and finally into the alpine region above tree line. (In the Upper Boreal Zone
is an interesting plant, Sphagnum Moss. It is a green, bog moss with the feel
of a damp sponge. During the First World War this moss was used as a field
dressing for open wounds because it was sterile and capable of absorbing up to
twenty times its volume in liquids.) Once above tree line, ground cover
includes various sedges, grasses and rushes, plants similar to those in the
Arctic. Most peaks are windswept, thus devoid of any vegetation, apart from
Lichens that bravely cling to rocks and survive extreme cold and heavy
snows.Clouds, which cover the
Presidential Range 60% of the time, mean that moisture is greater the higher
one climbs. Nevertheless, the soil is more acidic and contains fewer nutrients,
as the mist washes restoratives down the mountain.

As a National Forest, the White Mountains may be selectively logged, but
its real purpose is as a place to be enjoyed by people for the beauty of its
peaks, gorges and vistas – to be at one with nature. Sitting on a ledge between
Adams and Jefferson looking into the Great Gulf, or standing atop Madison
looking south and west toward Washington one is reminded of man’s relative
insignificance. While there are wild animals like moose, black bears, white
tail deer and even the occasional bob cat, the risk to campers and hikers is
the vastness of its space and, more especially, the weather. It is easy to get
lost if one wanders off the trail, and the weather, especially above tree line,
can change quickly. While mountains like the Matterhorn, K2, Mount Blanc, or
even Mounts Rainier and Hood in the U.S. are far higher and more difficult
climbs, Mount Washington consistently ranks among the deadliest. That is
because it gets more visitors, and hikers become surprised by high winds and
low temperatures. Its modest height of 6,288 feet belies the ferociousness of
its weather. Average wind speeds are in excess of 40 miles per hour, with a
record wind gust of 231 miles per hour recorded in April, 1934. Temperatures in
July and August average in the mid 40s, with frequent dips below freezing. More
than 130 people have died on the mountain, generally because they were
unprepared.

But on this trip we are staying at the Mount Washington Hotel, with its
golf courses, hiking and riding trails, tennis courts and swimming pools. For a
few pleasant days, it is a place to forget the 24-hour news cycle: The
election, with the braggadocio that is Donald Trump and the stink that emanates
from the dissembling and corruption that is Hillary Clinton; the persistent
slaughter of innocents by those we dare not name; and political correctness – a
guise in the form of feigned respect, but in reality an attempt to disparage
independent thought.

As we turn from the majestic view and return to the rest of our family,
I realize George was right. Before being named Eisenhower in 1969, the peak was
known as Dome Mountain, and before that Mount Pleasant – two words that, when
used as adjectives, were appropriate to our 34th President. It makes
me wonder: Where is a man like Ike today, and why, with mountains and ideals so
high, have we descended so low?

[1] In 2003, New Hampshire’s State legislaturechanged the name of Mt. Clay to Mt. Reagan. (The peak
had been named for the 19th Century Kentucky Senator Henry Clay.) The
U.S. Board of Geographic Names, being politically coy, has so far refused to
honor New Hampshire’s wishes, continuing to call the 5,533-foot peak Mt. Clay. It
will surprise no one that I prefer New Hampshire’s choice.

Monday, August 22, 2016

drawing the materials of future wisdom from
the past errors and infirmities of mankind.”

Edmund
Burke (1729-1797)

History is not a dusty record of the past. The study of it provides a
means by which we improve the future – understanding that which our forebears
did well and what they did poorly. We cannot return to the past, but we should
not run from it. The past helped form us, individually, as a people and as a
nation.

Albert Einstein wrote about education, that it is “…the training of the
mind to think.” Living in a free and democratic country, with “God-given” natural
rights, it is our duty to know and understand those rights – how and why they
were created – and then pass them on. In the movie Chariots of Fire, Eric Liddell explains his need to run: “[God]
made me fast. And when I run I feel His pleasure.” We have similar obligations.

For most of his time on earth man has been ruled by men. The concept of
men being governed by laws is rare and relatively new – something that is true
for the United States and other democracies, an idea that can be traced to the
Magna Carta. As reported by the 2016 Freedom House report, only 13% of the
world’s population live in democracies. And, according to the same source, for
the 10th year in a row global freedom declined. Do American high
schoolers recognize the significance of that report – how fortunate they are
and how fragile is liberty? In 1995, the U.S. Department of Education suggested
programs to address this lack of knowledge. Yet fifteen years later test results
conducted by National Assessment of Educational Progress, showed that only 13%
of high school seniors were proficient in American history. H.G. Wells wrote that
civilization is a race between education and catastrophe. It is, if one
believes that liberty is essential to a free life. Keep in mind, its loss leads
to darkness and totalitarianism. A democracy functions when the electorate is
educated. Authoritarianism thrives when ignorance predominates.

To understand those who came before us and to appreciate the rarity and
vulnerability of our liberties, we must know something of the era in which those
who formed our nation lived. That requires an understanding of the times. In
applying 21st Century standards to 18th and 19th
Century values, we can trivially pursue all that was wrong with those who
helped mold our culture, society and country, but, in doing so we show
ignorance. Looked at that way, why would we honor George Washington, Thomas
Jefferson, James Madison, Elihu Yale, Leland Stanford, James Duke, Woodrow
Wilson or John C. Calhoun? None of these people conformed solely to the values
we cherish today, yet all of them helped provide institutions we esteem. We can
fault all eight men. The first three were slave holders. Elihu Yale was an imperialist;
Leland Stanford exploited Chinese workers; James Duke made his fortune in
tobacco; Woodrow Wilson believed in the superiority of the White Race, and John
C. Calhoun was a slave owner and defender of slave owners.

But George Washington guided the American colonies to freedom against
the British, and served as our first President. In authoring the Declaration of
Independence, Thomas Jefferson wrote of individual liberty. James Madison co-authored
the Federalist Papers, which were instrumental in getting the Constitution
approved by States’ legislatures. Messrs Yale, Stanford and Duke were
philanthropists who provided the funds to start three of America’s greatest
universities. In his textbook The State,
Woodrow Wilson advocated the use of government to allay social ills and to
advance society’s welfare. John C. Calhoun, a South Carolinian and Yale
graduate who died ten years before the Civil War broke out, did defend slavery,
but he was also an advocate for minority rights. Additionally, he served as
Vice President for two distinctively different Presidents – John Quincy Adams
and Andrew Jackson. Of these men, we don’t have to excuse their defects to
admire their positive contributions.

It has become popular on campuses to trash benefactors without
considering the ideas they espoused within the context of their time. Students
at Princeton have railed against the “racist” Woodrow Wilson. Those at Amherst
have belittled the “bigot” Lord Jeffrey Amherst for allegedly giving Small
Pox-infested blankets to native American Indians.Students at Yale want to change the name of
Calhoun College. Following marches in Ferguson and the creation of the Black
Lives Movement, protesters at the University of Missouri caused the president
to resign. The Chancellor of the University of Wisconsin-Stout recently
e-mailed students about the repositioning of two paintings depicting American
Indians: “…a university needs to encourage a free flow of ideas…as long as we
don’t foist those ideas on unaware or unwilling recipients.” The word “man” has
been removed from the lexicon at Princeton. Complaints of racism and acts of
micro-aggression have caused student protests at Harvard, Oberlin, Brown and
other colleges. Silliness reigns.

Throughout our history student movements have been instrumental in
hastening social change and behavior. One has only to look back to the civil
and women rights movements of the 1960s, or the anti-Vietnam War protests to
appreciate the effect they can have. But in those days – fifty years ago –
students were advocating for the right to speak and be heard. Now they
demonstrate to protest voices and icons that make them uncomfortable. Universities
should be forums for debate, to discuss ideas, not safe places for those whose
feelings have been hurt. Administrations should not give in to students at the
first moment of controversy. As political correctness gathers, commonsense
dissipates?

Is there a universal code of behavior? If there is (and I believe there
is), and we see it being violated, shouldn’t we attempt to correct it? Should
not a college president hold onto universal morals, not simply those that are au courant? Do we, as a free people,
have a responsibility to encourage freedom in other countries? Is democracy
exportable? It has become common to claim we have no right to interfere in the
affairs of other nations. We have been conditioned by events in Vietnam and the
Middle East. But isn’t that what we did in Japan and Germany after the Second
World War, and in South Korea after the Korean Conflict? Do we not still have
troops in their countries? Are not their people better off for our having given
not only our blood and treasure, but also for having instructed them on the
merits of freedom and democracy? Were Germans who murdered six million Jews, or
Japanese who brutalized their captives less barbaric than ISIS today? If our
enemies of 75 years ago could be redeemed, why not Iraqis today?

Political correctness, as endorsed by Washington, reminds one of George
Orwell’s Ministry of Truth. To be afraid to connect radical Islam with terror,
or to be fearful of freely investigating black-on-black crimes imperils those
one claims to want to help. The first is not necessarily xenophobic and the
second is not definitively bigotry. For Americans to accept unquestioningly the
gradual assimilation of power by the President through use of executive orders,
and the concomitant emasculation of Congress’ authority, speaks to a failure to
understand our history, its institutions and the merits of liberty. It is
easier to do an apology tour for a previous administration’s foreign policies
and to blame police, than to explain the historical significance of liberty, or
to ask the question: Why have black-on-black crimes proliferated?

The study of history allows us to better understand the world and its
problems, and to seek possible solutions – to put things in perspective.
Education is the gateway through which we march toward freedom. There is a gate-less
fence that encircles places like China, Russia, Iran, Cuba and North Korea. We
cannot let that happen here. We must not let our children be ignorant of their
and their country’s history. She or he who lets open the door of knowledge furthers
freedom. He or she who does not sanctions servitude.

Monday, August 15, 2016

Gregory (Scotland Yard): “Is there any other point to which you you would wish to draw my
attention?”

Holmes: “To the
curious incident of the dog in the night-time.”

Gregory: “The
dog did nothing in the night-time.”

Holmes: “That
was the curious incident.”

“The
Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes: Silver Blaze,” 1892

Arthur
Conan Doyle (1859-1930)

Brexit, like the Trump phenomena in the U.S., was, at least in part, a
consequence of elitist politicians, along with corporate and banking CEOs.
Together they have constructed a crony capitalist system that works for them,
but not for those they claim to represent. In granting extraordinary salaries
and benefits to public union employees, they have assured themselves of money
and support from that sector as well. (In America there are about 22 million
government workers, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics – 10% of all
registered voters.) Western democracies no longer fit Lincoln’s description of
the United States, when he spoke at Gettysburg in 1863: “…government of the
people, by the people, for the people…”

President Obama has been right to point out that there is “one percent
and a ninety-nine percent,” but it is not just the rich versus the poor that is
the problem; it is also those that use government as a springboard for personal
wealth and power, and the rest of us. The
former move back and forth from Congress to K Street, from corporate offices
and Wall Street to Administrations. Such movements were not unknown in years
past, but never have corruption and arrogance been so widespread. Think of the
Clintons, and then recall what ex-President Truman said, in response to an
offer of a corporate board seat: “You don’t want me. You want the office of the
President, and that doesn’t belong to me. It belongs to the American people and
it’s not for sale.” And the same can be said for Congressional seats, Cabinet
posts and Ambassadorships. The concept of service is but a distant memory. Political
correctness is ubiquitous, and risks First Amendment rights. A lack of border
control has caused immigration to become a wellspring of terrorism, instead of
a fount of cultural diversity. It has brought multiculturalism, instead of
pluralism. A recent McKinsey study noted that stagnant incomes bother people
more than inequality. People in England, like the United States, are tired of
the hypocrisy and lies told by politicians, alienated from those they represent.

In the late 1940s, after thirty years of depression, oppression and war,
Europe was determined to find peace and prosperity. NATO was created to provide
a common defense against a menacing Soviet Union. The European Economic
Community (EEC), better known as the Common Market, came into being a dozen
years later to foster trade and boost commerce. Both worked. But like all
organisms, a desire to grow caused bureaucrats in Brussels to over-extend their
reach. It is a truism: As governments get bigger they consume more space and
encompass more people. And leaders become isolated from those they lead.

Left unchecked, this is a trend that will have dystopian conclusions.
Like the ancien regime of
pre-revolutionary France, those in charge, along with those who feed off government,
care foremost about their own affairs. How else, for example, could you explain
America’s Affordable Care Act, which does not apply to those who conceived and
implemented it? Why does compensation in government jobs exceed similar work in
the private sector by thirty percent? Why are Congressional retirement benefits
so generous and vest after only five years? Does someone whose retirement plan
is based on defined benefits understand the needs and concerns of those on
defined contribution plans?

Like their American counterparts, European politicians and bureaucrats lead
a coddled life, with their lives having little in common with those they
represent. The cultural challenge brought about by unrestrained immigration
affects the poor and middle classes, not those who opened the gates. Politicians
and bureaucrats in London and Brussels have grown comfortable with a system
that has treated them well and that has protected them against the vicissitudes
of the market place. Knowing that Brexit would be personally uncomfortable they
did all they could to scare the electorate, even going so far as to enlist
President Barack Obama in their cause. In his “no man is an island” speech last
April, with then Prime Minister David Cameron by his side, Mr. Obama warned
that exiting the E.U. would have “dire economic consequences,” and that an
England outside the European Union would, in terms of trade with the U.S., have
to go “to the back of the queue.”

After the vote, there was a sense of incredulity, expressed not only by
politicians but by their media partners. Why were polls so wrong? How could
people do the unexpected? Why didn’t the electorate listen to their betters?
The academic and banking establishment leapt into the melee, forecasting
recession if not depression: The British Pound would sink, financial markets
would collapse and chaos would ensue. One commentator in the Financial Times suggested five possible outcomes,
ranging from London becoming “Detroit” to the City becoming “Shangdon,” with
foreclosed properties snatched up by foreign buyers.

Immediately after the vote, markets did fall. The Pound dropped 10%
from where it had been a week before the vote. (While it had rallied in the
days going into the vote, it had been in decline for two years) Since dropping,
it has stabilized. The Bloomberg GBP Investment Grade European Corporate Bond
Index is 4% higher than where it was prior to the vote. (Admittedly, bonds were
helped by the Bank of England’s $100 billion asset purchase program.) The FTSE
100, however, is 8% above where it was before the vote. On July 23rd,
the Financial Times, which had been
an adamant voice for “Remain,” headlined their lead editorial: “Brexit fears of
market contagion look overdone.” While that appears obvious, it seems that many
in England and on the Continent still hope for collapse, to vindicate their
prior views and to set an example for other nations considering vacating the European
Union.

As much as anything, and similar to the Trump phenomena in the U.S.,
the Brexit vote expressed disillusionment with the status quo: big government,
with bloated and distant bureaucracies, financed with high taxes and
suffocating regulations that protect favored businesses and industries and which
impair competition. The consequence of the status quo has been slow economic
growth and increasing disquiet. The establishment’s answer to stagnating wages
and diminishing productivity is more of the same – demand-side economic policies
that rely on government spending, and on Central Banks to assure the
continuance of cheap money. What have been ignored are fiscal reforms and reliance
on the private sector.

I do not want to trivialize the difficulties of leaving the European
Union. One doesn’t walk away and shut the door. Borders will require increased
security. The processing of Residency Rights will have to be expedited and simplified.
(The existing document is, according to one source, 85 pages.) New trade
agreements will have to be negotiated. Uncertainty lingers for the 10% of the
City’s workforce that are non-British EU citizens. The UK may no longer have
automatic access to the European Investment Bank.

But the reaction of markets, as the dog in Doyle’s short story tells
us, suggest exiting is feasible; and if the lesson is that the people are once
again in charge and the bureaucrats are put out to pasture, the future should
be better than the past. Democracies have many benefits, but one thing they are
not is efficient. Technocrats like efficiency, but in the long run, free
markets, the give and take in debates, and classically liberal ideas do more to
better lives than all the “smart” people tucked away in Brussels, London and Washington.